Margaret D. Klein Quotes

Psychologically speaking, the rational, healthy response to climate change is to say to oneself, "What can I do about this?" But that question is often answered through individual action.

By looking the other way on climate change we facilitate a collective denial, and we do it for each other.

Online petitions are built around getting as many signatures as possible. But the experience of taking them and forgetting about them degrades the importance.

I argue that I don't think it's a moral position to say that civilization is going to collapse, and that's okay. Because that would cause the deaths of billions of people. It's certainly not something I'm willing to accept.

What we accomplished during World War Two is just amazing. We turned our country upside down. African Americans were demanding to be given combat missions. 10% of Americans moved in order to relocate for a war job. We as a country accomplished this heroic, nearly miraculous thing, and we have this legacy of policies and agency - how did they do it? How did they fund it? How did they organize it? It is actually an example that we can borrow from very productively to guide us.

There are a lot of reasons people don't talk about climate change. One of them has to do with the language of science, and people feeling not competent about this issue.

The problem is so severe that trying to say, "First we'll fix the government and then we'll tackle climate change," or, "First we have to figure out alternative systems to capitalism and then we'll tackle climate change," I don't see how those things are possible in the very short term.

Climate change is the sine qua non of continued civilization. We either solve this, or it's lights out. Turning into a collective like that is so much more aligned with how humans live and think and change.

I used to be a lot more afraid of climate change. Now I spend my time working, planning, trying to move forward.

While the American people have the impression that scientists are hard at work figuring out this complex matter of climate change, it's not actually that complicated.

I think it's very important to invite and encourage people to talk about climate change who have a lay understanding. In general, there is a lot of confusion among climate activists about the role of science, that scientists should be social and political leaders of this movement.

With climate change, of course there are things to grieve. I certainly grieved that the vision that I had for my life, that I would be a clinical psychologist and write books and have a family, that that was not going to happen, because if the world is collapsing around you, it just doesn't seem that appealing anymore.